Veiller op ellepublished by L’Iconoclaste, described as a long fresco about sculpture and Italy, proposes a journey to that country, at the beginning of the 20th century, with two characters whose fate should never have crossed: Mimo, a poor sculptor and talented, and Viola, the daughter of a wealthy marquis, is too ambitious.
The story of Michelangelo Vitaliani, known as “Mimo”, is told backwards, beginning with the death of an 82-year-old man, in the fall of 1986, in the monastery of Piedmont, where he had spent the previous forty years incognito. .
Mimo was born in France to Italian parents and, after his father’s death in the war, was sent by his mother to work in the small Turin studio of an alcoholic sculptor who abused his student.
In December 1917 the two moved to Pietra d’Alba, a village dominated by the wealthy Orsini clan and orange groves, where he met Viola, the youngest daughter of this family of marquises, who immediately tried to tell him that they would never could come together. friends because they do not come from the same social environment.
An intense and platonic relationship will develop between the two that will last decades, consisting of secret meetings in the Pietra d’Alba cemetery, where she (who is called a witch by the village) listens to the dead. Viola gives Mimo her first book about Fra Angelico from her father’s library, and he sculpts her a marble bear for her birthday.
“It’s a great emotional moment. I just dried my tears in the taxi,” the author responded emotionally upon arrival at the Drouant restaurant, where the prize has traditionally been awarded for more than a century.
“I prepare my whole story. This took ten months of preparation, in my head, in a notebook. I don’t write a single line of the novel. Then, one day, I say to myself: my story is there, so that I can to stop to think and ask myself where it is going”, he confided to France Inter, adding: “My first three novels have been made into films. This time I wanted to break all boundaries”.
Jean-Baptiste Andrea, 52 years old, was awarded for his fourth novel, leaving behind the other three finalists for the prize: the French writer Éric Reinhardt, with the novel Sarah, Susanne and l’écrivainKoening Gaspard, with Humus and Neige Sinno, with Sad tigerwhich won the Femina Prize on Monday.
The announcement was made at the Drouant restaurant in Paris, where the judges were meeting, and a few minutes later the winner of the Renaudot Prize, awarded to Ann Scott, was announced. Lesson insolence.
Jean-Baptiste Andrea, born in 1971, is a French novelist, director and screenwriter. He grew up in Cannes, where he started making short films, and later moved to Paris, where he graduated in political science and economics.
His debut novel, Ma Reinewas published in 2017 and was immediately awarded several literary prizes, including Best French debut novel.
Goncourt has a purely symbolic cash prize, as the winner receives a check for only ten euros, but this guarantees the author’s fame, millionaire print runs and translations into dozens of languages.
Last year, the Goncourt was awarded to the French writer Brigitte Giraud for the novel Vibrant Vitwhich chronicles the unlikely series of events that led to her husband’s death in a motorcycle accident.
Source: DN
